Since we're discussing games as potential material can I suggest we NOT include games like Tic-Tack-Toe or Connect Four\Four-In-A-Row? Games like these are completely solved already so it seems useless to include them in a challenge that is supposed to promote critical thinking.

Makes me worry when I see a programmer say not to do that. You could easily twist rules to make the compo interesting. Tic-Tac-Toe (classic is 3 in a row/diagonal) you could make the grid bigger, more players and symbols ('x', 'o', triangle, etc). Connect Four/Four in a row(self explanatory on rules) could be turned into a connectris or something (have to connect your pieces in the shape of the tretris shapes) or some variant where you twist the rules. Got to get creative with things that have been done to death.

@Computergeek01
No, for Rubik's Cube, adding more dimensions would make it impossible to code. For that you would either add more rows and columns and colors or add more rows and columns and make shapes part of it.

My thought process is kind of the whole point behind game development. Take the ideas that have been done and think of ways to change, add, etc to them to make them original or fun again. Compos should reflect this and try to take old everyday ideas and give them a new twist to make them fun for the compo and not just discard them because they had been done to death.

This is just an idea I came to think of, not sure if it's a good one. Instead of making a game we could do parts of a game, like the AI. Someone could write a very simple game and an AI base class and the challenge would be to write the best AI class.

It doesn't really need to be a game. It could just be any part of a bigger program.

I didn't say it was impossible to build the physical object, I said it was impossible to code. Though, if it is a twelve sided pentagon it really isn't a cube anymore. I suppose it would be possible to code, but really complex to do so.

@ devonrevenge: Awhile back someone posted on online game they had started making like that. You wrote a script and uploaded it into the webpage and your 'bot' had to survive X number of rounds for each level. It was a really cool concept but I don't think they ever finished. We should definitely do that, but maybe use syntax from an existing scripting language?